Celebrating Seven Months

If there is one thing I know about my child, it is that Chet is definitely his own individual person. Baby books? Throw them out the window. He hasn’t followed any of the recommended guidelines. He is hitting the baby milestones in all the wrong order.

This month has been a challenging month in our house. Chet desperately wants to move, but still loves to hang out on my hip all day long. Can he learn to crawl from my arms? He gets frustrated. A lot. I can tell he is sick of being stuck on his back and rolling his way around the house. Just the past few days, he has really started to army crawl across the floor. His back-end and front-end are both working hard to crawl, he just can’t get both going at the same time yet. He’s also working on sitting. He can stay up right for a second or two (sometimes five) before he tips over.

Sleep has been our other challenge. A “good” night of sleep is now defined by two wake-ups (one if I am really lucky!). A “bad” night of sleep is defined as 3 or 4 wakes. A “night nap” now defines a middle of the night play session. This month has had all three, and zero nights of sleeping through the night. Somehow my body has adjusted, and I’m still function on a few hours of broken sleep every day. I really think this sleep pattern goes hand in hand with all of his development. He’s on the verge of bigger and better. To get there, his brain and body need to grow. He needs all the nutrients while he is sleeping so he can grow. On the “night nap” nights, I do my best to remind myself of this. He is a baby for such a short period of time, I’m okay giving up some sleep. (and I also love that it is a way for me to sneak in some extra mama and baby bonding time).

Speaking of nutrients, Chet is still exclusively breast fed. We survived another month without having to introduce formula. (Fingers crossed. Knock on Wood.) I’m feeling slightly optimistic about my milk production. This month I now have 10 bags of milk in the freezer (up six bags from last month!). Introducing a meal at my mom’s house during the day has really helped. He’s eating oatmeal plus a veggie or bananas (the only fruit he will eat right now) for his mid day meal. He is also eating veggies at night for dinner. I haven’t found a veggie he won’t eat, but still can’t get him on board with fruit. I think this month, I am going to start introducing more finger foods. (We also haven’t had any more nursing strikes! big huge mama sigh of relief!)

Our talkative newborn has turned into a very talkative baby. He says Mamamamama all the time. Brababa (which decided means brother) comes out of his mouth all day long. He is very interested in his mouth and his tongue. He’s always hold his jaw, mouth and tongue in crazy positions as he tries to mimic everything we are doing.

Right now I am very happy to hold on to as much baby as I possibly can. I have a feeling our house is going to be turn upside down once this little guy becomes mobile.

We finally had to say goodbye to the elephant onesie. Chet’s finally wearing six month clothes at Carters.